SOLs Covered: 6.CE.2 Integer Operations
Math Unit: 04 Integer Operations
Daily Agenda: September 30, 2024 & October 1-4, 2024
Upcoming Assessments: FORM Quiz 4 Integer Operations: Addition & Subtraction (Mon. 10/7)
Good afternoon! Before jumping into this week's math happenings, I first want to congratulate my co-teacher Mrs. Lee (along with her husband Mr. Lee, one of our 8th grade teachers) on the birth of their son earlier today! She officially started her maternity leave earlier this week and will be out until January, but we have a long-term sub in place to help with the regular day-to-day things and Mrs. Staples, our special education coordinator, handling her case load. Mrs. Lee won't be able to check her email while out, but I can pass along any well wishes if you'd like.
Before getting into our current math topic, I want to share/remind students and families of some of the resources I provide. This was shared in class this week and extra time was given to work on make-up work on Wednesday, but I feel it's important to reiterate here. All students are provided with a set of backup notes for all the topics we cover in addition to those we take in class. I have digital copies posted in the modules, but due to those being in my "personal work" Google Drive (as opposed to my county-provided account), they are blocked for the kids when logged into their Chromebook. Copying it all over to my county account is a very long process, so I now have digital backups for the backups housed in this folder, which is linked in the "Class Info & Tech Support" module on Canvas and I'll update the other modules as time permits. Next there is my class YouTube channel, which I'd previously thought was blocked for the students. The link from Canvas does get blocked, but students can still find my channel directly on YouTube by searching for my handle name (MathLambert). There I have a few videos of my own, but the bulk of this resource are the playlists I've set up for every topic we cover, which include helpful videos I've found from other creators. There is also a class Portaportal (a bookmarking website that allows you to share bookmarks) and a link to the county's Student/Parent Resource Page from the math department. When working at home or even when in class/school but unable to get direct support from myself or my co-teacher, they can find a variety of resources to help them continue their work while waiting for additional support from us. Finally, we reviewed how to find the graded assignments for class; we do a variety of practice assignments that do not all get graded, so kids sometimes struggle keeping track of those items that impact their grade. I've added a few features directly on Canvas (headers to point out which items are graded as well as module requirement settings), but I also showed them how to find the links on StudentVUE that will take them directly to the graded work.
In regards to math, we continued working on integer operations, still focusing just on addition and subtraction for now. Students have to be able to model solving all the operations using both number lines and counters, which isn't always the preferred method for some as they'd rather just apply the "old school" algorithm while others can't wrap their heads around the algorithm but have a solid grasp of the modeling. We've practiced with all three ways and I've told the students that no matter which way is presented in a question, they can always check their work with their preferred method. For both the modeling and the more traditional "straight up" computation questions, the students are not allowed to use a calculator. They are however allowed to use one for the problems including absolute value and those presented as word problems. For the absolute value ones, which is a new 6th grade standard (they've previously only had to find the absolute value of single digits in Math 6), the calculator can be a good way to check their work as this is another standard that requires plotting the results on a number line. For the word problems, it isn't always as useful as they part they have the most trouble with is figuring out the appropriate operation. This is something we'll continue to emphasis and practice all year long as it's often the biggest struggle area, but we have an on-going list of keywords the students should keep in the front of their math folder/binder to aid them. We'll do a review on Monday before taking the quiz and then we'll launch into multiplication and division of integers before wrapping up the unit. The grades for this unit will be the last for this term's report card, so please help me by encouraging the kids to study this weekend and to stay on top of the remaining work.
I've gotten carried away again, so I'll wrap things up here. Thank you for your continued support and involvement... especially if you made it all the way through my Friday ramblings! Hope you all have a great weekend!